by Steve McHugh
“Hope,” I said with a forced smile, “how are you?”
When Pandora was created all those millennia ago, it was by taking a normal human woman by the name of Hope and forcing her to bond with what is best described as a demon; a non-corporeal entity from another realm. It made her immortal, powerful, and dangerous. But it also left the demon in charge. She took the name Pandora. At some point, those responsible for Pandora’s creation realized that Hope’s consciousness was still inside. Over time, Pandora and Hope had come to some kind of mutual agreement, allowing each of them to be in charge as needed. Hope retained Pandora’s anger at those who had forced her into the situation she’d found herself in, but Hope hated the use of violence. She once told me that she’d seen enough of it through her long life and didn’t want to add to the tally of misery that Pandora had managed to accrue. She had a fair point.
“She’s unhappy that you stopped us from hurting that man. She didn’t think you were so weak. Pandora’s words, not mine.”
“I have no problems with killing or hurting people, but she did that for fun. I would have just killed him and been done with it. The theatrics were unnecessary; he had no information we needed and was bewitched anyway, so he only felt something at the very end. It was a pointless exercise of power to punish someone she wanted to hurt.”
“She’s angry. Although it’s not entirely aimed at you.”
“Well, wherever you’re going, she’ll have time to come to terms with whatever caused that anger.”
“I’m not going back to Tartarus?” Hope asked.
I shook my head and slowed up as we reached a Nazi checkpoint. Hope remained silent as I wound down my window and passed my forged papers to the officer who asked for them. He spoke to me about my journey, and I informed him that I was taking my girlfriend for a drive in the country. He looked Hope over and smiled, wishing me a good day before allowing me to pass.
“Why aren’t I going back to Tartarus?” Hope asked after we’d put more distance between the checkpoint and us.
“The second you escaped—”
“Pandora escaped,” Hope corrected.
“Sorry—the second Pandora escaped, she caused a lot of people to petition Hades to have you moved. Avalon agreed with Hera and a bunch of her cronies that you needed to be housed in a secure environment away from any influences.”
“I liked Tartarus. Everyone was nice to me.” She remained quiet for a few seconds. “I’m not going to be placed with Hera or any of her group, am I?”
“No, Hades wouldn’t let that happen, no matter what pressure anyone might put on him.” It wasn’t a huge secret that Hera wanted to have control of Pandora. Apart from her talent of bewitching people, she was also immortal and pretty much impervious to harm, although she did feel pain. Hera would have very much liked to study her and see what she could learn.
“Hera has always wanted to use me again,” she said, as if knowing my own thoughts. “She never showed any concern at what she and those closest to her created. Even Zeus begged me for forgiveness.”
I opened my mouth in shock. I’d never heard of Zeus begging for anything, although I knew that Pandora’s creation and what she had been used for had caused him many sleepless nights. Hades had mentioned before that it was the only one of a few occasions when he ever saw his Zeus have doubts over something he’d done.
Pandora was created as a weapon, the ancient Greek equivalent of a nuclear bomb. She could enthrall anyone she came into physical contact with, having the person do whatever she wished. During the Titan Wars, when the Olympians and Titans fought for supremacy millennia ago, the Titans destroyed an Olympian stronghold, killing tens of thousands of humans in the process.
In response, Pandora was created and sent to the Titan cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. She walked through the cities, ensuring that brother killed brother and wife killed husband. She turned tens of thousands of people against one another and forced the Titans to burn the place to the ground so that no one could escape and infect anyone else. It was before the true nature of Pandora’s power was discovered, when people thought that anyone enthralled could enthrall others. A combination of lies, half-truths, and deadly action turned two cities into scorch marks on the earth.
Some of the Olympians saw what had happened and were ashamed of what they’d created, ashamed of the awful destruction they’d wrought. Hera was not one of them.
“Hera wants power,” I said. “She always has. And since Zeus vanished, that craving has increased. The group she’s created with her companions has a lot of influence over Avalon, but not enough to get Hades to hand you over to them. There are too many powerful people who don’t want to see any more power in her grubby little hands. You’ll be taken somewhere neutral.”
Hope nodded in understanding.
“Did you forgive Zeus?” I asked.
“Understanding why he and the rest of the Olympians created us and forgiving them for it are two very different things. His apology went some way toward me holding no anger against him. Although, given a chance, Pandora would like to punish him. Only Hera, Ares, Demeter, Aphrodite, Dionysus, and Hephaestus remained unapologetic. My anger is reserved for them more than those who showed remorse at what they’d done.”
Of all the gods who had been involved in the wars that had been fought at the time, only Hades, Athena, and Hermes had refused to be involved in Pandora’s creation. These three, Zeus, and Avalon had tried to keep Pandora as far away from trouble as possible once the war was over. Usually, only a few centuries would pass before she escaped again and caused havoc in the world, but once we actually managed to find her, she’d always been captured with a minimum of fuss. For the past thousand years, I had always carried out that particular task.
We reached the airfield a short time later, and I nodded to one of Hades’s guards, who, along with his comrade, opened the fifteen-foot gate and let us in. I drove across the empty airstrip and parked the car beside the only hangar within the enclosed space.
Hades left the hangar before I could get out of the car; he opened Hope’s door, and she beamed at him as she stepped out.
“Hades,” Hope said with a genuine smile.
“Is that Hope? I’d . . . well, hoped that it would be you and not your alter ego. I was unsure how happy she would be at being captured after such a short period of time. She’s normally free for much longer.” Hades walked over to Hope and passed her two small bracelets, which Hope fastened on each wrist without complaint. They were designed to ensure that Pandora didn’t try to take control of her while she was in custody. They dampened Pandora’s abilities until she could be placed securely above whatever transport Hades was using; this vehicle would have the runework inside to ensure Pandora had no access to her power.
“She’s okay with it,” Hope said and looked over at me. “She expected Nathan to recapture us at some point.”
“Is there anything you can tell us about what she’s been doing?” Hades asked.
It was a question I’d wondered myself, although I knew that Pandora wouldn’t have said anything unless it benefited her, and I didn’t really want Hope to have to explain it to me and then Hades, so I hadn’t bothered to ask.
“It’s something to do with Berlin,” Hope said, clearly unhappy that she didn’t know more.
Although Pandora and Hope shared a body, and their emotions could be felt by one another, both of them could choose to hide things from the other. Pandora had learned long ago to hide her more violent tendencies from Hope, as they had begun to break Hope’s human psyche. Pandora couldn’t hide everything; things bled through whether she wanted them to or not, but she would endeavor to hide anything that would either cause Hope mental anguish or make her a liability if questioned.
“Do you know anything else?” a woman asked as she stepped around the side of the hangar.
She was one of the most staggeringly beautiful women I’d ever laid eyes on. The top half of her hair was so dark that it appeared
no light could escape its snare, while the bottom half, which cascaded over her shoulders, was brilliant silver. I knew that the time of day affected how much of her hair was one color or the other; the later in the day, the more of it was dark.
Her lips were full and inviting, and her gaze filled you with the notion that she was both easy to talk to and fun to be around. A wicked temper hid behind the friendly exterior; it was something that anyone who crossed her was quick to feel. Her eyes were the most brilliant shade of green I’d ever encountered.
She was about five-four, although her high-heeled boots added another three or four inches to that, and she wore a dark trouser suit that would never have looked as good on anyone else on earth. Memories of her body, moving against me, tight and athletic, snapped to the front of my mind. I almost had to shake my head to remove the unwanted thoughts.
“Selene,” I said, keeping my tone calm, my thoughts neutral. My anger in check.
She glanced my way and nodded once.
Hades tried very hard not to look at me.
I tried very hard not to jump back in the car and drive away as fast as possible.
“I’ll take Hope for a chat,” Selene said, motioning for Hope to follow her.
I waited until they were both back in the hangar before looking at Hades. “Selene?” I asked, my tone incredulous. “Who’s unbearably stupid idea was this?”
“Apparently, Hera managed to swing the idea of putting someone with you to figure out whatever Pandora is up to. Hera suggested that she come see what’s happening.”
“And she agreed?”
“When I say ‘suggested,’ I mean she told her either she would come, or her husband’s brother would. Who would you prefer—Selene or the complete absence of personality that is Phobos?”
I sighed and placed my head against the Bugatti’s cool roof. “Great.”
“I know this can’t be easy for you,” Hades said as he walked over to me and leaned on the car.
“At least I know Selene is competent and won’t try to undermine me at every available opportunity. Besides, at least Hera didn’t send Selene’s husband, Deimos, instead, although it’s nice of Hera to try to use her grandson’s wife as a weapon against me.”
“You got that notion too,” Hades said with a sigh. “From what I hear, Deimos really hates you too. This probably won’t help.”
Deimos was, like his father Ares and siblings, an empath. Empaths came in two types, negative and positive. Although the positive empaths dealt with love, harmony, peace, and the like, the negative ones dealt in pain and anger and hate. Deimos, like all negative empaths, fed off people’s pain, making him physically stronger. But all empaths have one emotion that they are in sync with. In Deimos’s case it was terror. He could make you relive all of your memories where fear was prevalent. Empaths could even change your memories to increase the level of emotion they wanted from their victim. The more afraid the victim was, the more emotional the person became, and the stronger the empath would grow.
I nodded. “I don’t know if it’s because Selene was with me first, or because he thinks I’m a threat to their happy union, but he really does seem to have a bit of an issue with me.” A thought popped into my head. “Oh—it’s a little thing, but Pandora referred to herself as ‘I,’ not her normal ‘we.’ She did it a few times too.”
“You positive?” Hades asked, concerned.
“Yeah. You think maybe Pandora is exerting more control over Hope? She went to the Gestapo for a reason; there were lots of notes in their offices about North Africa and human test subjects. You think maybe she was helping them find the old realm gate the Olympians used to bring out the demon that they put inside Hope?”
“That realm gate is one of the most secure places on earth. It’s protected not only by Avalon but also by people I trust. But it’s worth letting them know your findings. Although why Pandora would want another person to go through what she did is beyond me.”
“Maybe that’s why she killed them.”
“Something feels rotten about this,” he said and placed a hand on my shoulder before walking off into the hangar, leaving me alone as the midday sun beat down on the airfield. I removed my jacket and dropped it through the open window of the Bugatti before rolling up the sleeves of my shirt.
“Is this going to be a problem?” Selene asked as she walked around the car. She smelled good; I picked out vanilla in whatever perfume she had put on. It was a scent I’d noticed on the sheets and pillows after she’d left the bed . . . I took a deep breath.
“Your husband is a colossal asshole,” I said. “And Hera an even bigger one for sending you here.”
“Noted,” she said sharply. “I’m not here to discuss my love life; I’m here to try to figure out what Pandora spent her time doing in Berlin. I was ready to join you before she gave herself up—an act, if you remember, she’s never done before.
“She doesn’t give up unless she’s caught. But this time, she came and found you to wave the white flag. What was she doing between the time she was evading you at the Gestapo HQ and this morning?”
I didn’t like the way she said evading me, but maybe I was just being overly sensitive, so I kept my opinion to myself.
“That wasn’t a dig,” she said, after reading the thoughts that were obviously written over my face.
Damn it—she knew me too well.
“I’m not here to cause problems, Nate,” she said softly. “I offered to come because we both know that if Phobos turned up, he’d spend half the time trying to undermine or kill you. I’m not going to play stupid games. We need to find out what Pandora did before people get hurt.”
“Nate,” Hades called out from inside the hangar.
Selene and I put our conversation on hold and made our way round to the front of the hangar, where we found Hades gesturing toward Pandora. There was a man lying prone on the ground as Pandora held his arm, locking it behind his back. From the pain on his face, it was obvious that he was clearly uncomfortable with the situation.
“Pandora,” I said, “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.” The change from Pandora to Hope and vice versa took a lot out of them; usually it was at least several hours before they could swap back again. That, combined with Pandora’s sudden use of the word ‘I’ was something I found very interesting. And even more concerning.
“We thought that Hope wasn’t best placed to answer your questions, but we’re wearing these ridiculous bracelets. We do not like that.”
“Let go of him,” I said, before finishing with a smile and adding “please.”
Pandora released the man, who started furiously rubbing his injured arm.
“No shackles,” Pandora snapped.
I picked up the handcuffs and threw them to Hades, who caught them absentmindedly and dropped them to the floor beside him. “I did try to tell him that they weren’t needed,” Hades said. “Apparently the staff Avalon sent with Selene thinks they know better.”
I thought I heard sniggering from inside the aircraft nearby, and I was certain that Hades’s men had decided to watch the fun and see what happened once someone tried to restrain Pandora.
The plane was a Douglas DC-3, a twin-propeller machine that I’d heard was going to help change the face of aviation. They’d only gone into general production a few months earlier, but I’d seen a similar aircraft being developed by Avalon nearly a decade before. Avalon technology tended to be ahead of anything humans might have access to, but eventually it filtered down.
“Is that your plane, Hades?” I asked.
Hades nodded. “Had it a few years, although it’s about four generations above whatever the humans are currently using.”
“If you two are done,” Selene snapped, and she strolled past us. “Pandora, we need to know where you were in Germany.”
Pandora laughed. “And you think we’re going to just tell you? You’re out of your damn mind.”
“You will tell us what we need to know.”
/>
“The only thing we’re going to tell you is how much you can go fuck yourself. If you’d like, we could take control of you and make you do it to yourself? You might get rid of some of the tension you’ve got there.”
Selene’s hands balled into fists.
“Pandora,” I said, taking control of the rapidly escalating situation, “you remember I informed Hope that you weren’t going back to Tartarus.”
Pandora and Selene exchanged one last glance of anger. “Yes, we remember.”
Hades took over the conversation, saying, “You have two options. The first one is that you’re going to be taken to America. Nevada, to be exact. Once there, you’re going to be lowered into a cell in an underground complex in the middle of the desert. You will have no contact with anyone ever again. Nate will not be permitted to go.”
“What? They can’t do that.” Fear crept into her voice. The fear of being essentially alone.
“Hera has already petitioned the Avalon council. They agreed that if you don’t cooperate with us, you won’t see another living being for a thousand years. Originally, she asked if she could have you experimented on, but that was going too far, even for them.”
“We would rather die than go there,” she almost shouted, all fight evaporating in an instant. The idea of no contact with anyone terrified her. Hera had carried out a similar punishment soon after her creation. For a year, Pandora had been alone in a dark pit, where the only people she saw were deaf mutes who brought her food. It didn’t take her long to break.
“However, if you agree to help us, you’ll be taken to the second option, a facility in London that will allow you contact with other people,” Hades told her. “Very specific people will be chosen to visit with you. They will be people you cannot enchant, but you will be able to have contact, to read and write as you wish. But only if you cooperate.”
Pandora glanced around at everyone in the hanger before talking. “You won’t be able to stop it.”
“Then there’s nothing stopping you from telling us,” Hades said.
Pandora appeared thoughtful for a second and then shrugged. “We were staying in the house of a man by the name of Jean Martin and his wife, Magali. Jean was the man on the motorbike you saw. They’re French nationals living in Dresden, working as part of an underground movement opposing the Nazis. We went to them for help, and a plan was devised. We would go to the Gestapo and tell them who we are and that we would help them win the coming war. In exchange, we wanted details of the security in Berlin for the upcoming Olympic games.”
